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Multimodal constructions in children : is the headshake part of language?

På svenska

Author

  • Mats Andrén

Summary, in English

Swedish children’s use of the headshake from 18 to 30 months shows a developmental progression from rote-learned coordination with speech to increasingly more flexible and productive coordination with speech. To deal with these observations, I introduce the concept of multimodal constructions in order to extend usage-based approaches to language learning and construction grammar into the kinetic domain. These ideas have consequences for the (meta-)theoretical question of whether gesture can be said to be part of language or not. I suggest that some speech-coordinated gestures, including the headshake, can be considered part of language, also in the traditional sense of language as a conventionalized system.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

141-170

Publication/Series

Gesture

Volume

14

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Keywords

  • development
  • language
  • gesture
  • construction grammar
  • semiotics

Status

Published

Project

  • Centre for Cognitive Semiotics (RJ)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1568-1475